From pointers to pistols
by Tristen88
Summary: A murderer who strikes through internet dating... ooh spooky!This is just Ch.1


Disclaimer: None of the Character's from the Fox TV show The Inside are mine, nor do I claim them as mine. I acknowledge them to be characters owned by the Fox Company.

Yeah, so this is an Inside fan fiction that I cooked up one night because I was really bored! Erm, Tristen is a character that I made up. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy!

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The only light in Sara Rixen's apartment was from the screen of the computer where she was sitting. She smiled a little, checking her e-mail for second time that night. She had finally met the guy for her. He was nice, good looking and had a well paying job, the only problem was that she had met him over the Internet. Sure, it was a little creepy - she had to admit it - but she had been searching for someone for the longest time now and had begun to lose hope. She was dressed in her best clothes and everything was ready. Soft music played in the living room and the dinner was finishing up in the oven. Closing the window with her e-mail and closing her laptop she stood up and looked around silently pondering as to what would make the night even better, "Candles!" she stated quickly and ran off to the kitchen only to return with several tall white candles which she quickly lit and set around the house. Sara looked up at a knock on her door and smiled with excitement as she ran to the door to answer it. "Hello…" she started, but suddenly stopped talking at the sight of the flowers in the man's hand. He let himself inside and handed the flowers to Sara, "So, I suppose that I am at the right place?" he asked in a quiet, but kind voice.

Sara's smile grew and she closed the door showing him around, "Bruce, it is good to see you. I have to admit, all my friends said this would be a bad idea, but I just had to meet you!"

Bruce nodded, a small smile playing across his face and a strange glint in his crystal blue eyes, "you should listen to your friends…" he stated and grabbed Sara by the wrist with his left hand while pulling a gun from under his jacket with his right, "because they were right…"

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A dark green Jeep Cherokee pulled to a stop outside of the Sunny-Hillside Apartment complex and a young woman stepped out into the warm California sunlight. She was dressed in black dress pants, a black collared shirt and a black fitted jacket. Black was her color, from her clothes to her hair, it seemed that this was the only one she liked enough to be seen in. Sunlight glinted off the STI Titan that was holstered on her hip and off her dark sunglasses as she made her way across the street and up the stairs to apartment number 18. She stopped upon reaching the door and looked at the police tape on it.

"Really is a pity isn't it?" a voice called from behind her, "That another person had to die." The stranger added. "Who are you?"

The woman spun around slowly and pulled out her badge, surprised to see herself facing another woman like herself, "Agent Hunt with the CIA" she stated coolly as she showed the badge. "Call me Tristen."

"I didn't know the CIA was working on this case too…" the other woman mused, her tone slightly annoyed as if she did not like what she was saying. "I'm Special Agent Rebecca Locke with the FBI violent crimes unit."

Tristen smirked a little, "Well I guess you guys just aren't cutting it. Or you wouldn't need my help." She opened the door and made her way into the room, taking the whole scene in quickly. There on the floor was the body of Sara Rixen in a pool of crimson blood. She sighed a little and noticed that a bouquet of red roses lie on the floor several yards away and several tall white candles had been placed about the room and were still lit. "Wow… candle lit dinner" she muttered, pulling out a pair of latex gloves and opening the oven, "looks as if the food was a little overcooked."

"So, do you have a team or something?" Rebecca asked while she was looking at the body.

"Nah, I do my work alone… well, most of it at least." Tristen replied, "How about you?" she asked, making her way towards the body to check it out herself.

Rebecca looked up, catching Tristen's eye, "Why yes I do, I'm sure you will enjoy the company."

"Lovely…" Tristen muttered and knelt down by Sara's body, "contusions on the wrist… this suggests that the killer grabbed her… but that's not all." She looked at Sara's wrist a little closer, "She trusted her killer."

"That is obvious, but how did you get that from a bruise on her wrist?" Rebecca questioned, taking a closer look at the wrist herself.

Tristen laughed quietly, "It wasn't from the wrist, I am just thinking out loud here. No forced entry into the apartment, dinner for two… your victim was meeting this guy. To be honest, I am not what you guys would call a skilled profiler… I know how to do it, but that is not my… specialty."

Rebecca nodded slightly, "Then I suppose you are lucky to have my team and me around. What exactly is your specialty then?"

"I know how to think of my feet…" Tristen started, "I normally do work against terrorists, but my director wanted me to take this case." she frowned a little, "working along side what he called a 'grade A team of Special Agents'."

Rebecca laughed a little, "Something tells me we aren't going to get along too well!"

Tristen grinned, "Something tells me we don't have much of a choice!"

As she was speaking, Tristen heard the sound of footsteps coming towards the door. She looked up as a woman and two men, all dressed in formal black and white walked in. Rebecca also looked up and smiled, "This is the rest of the group." She stated, glancing back to Tristen.

Tristen forced a smile and stood up, "Name's Tristen Hunt… I'm with the CIA."

The first man who had entered, smiled warmly, holding out his hand for Tristen to shake, "I'm Danny Love, it is good to meet you Tristen."

Tristen rolled her eyes, "Yeah, great to meet you too."

"And I'm Melody Sim, my friends call me Mel." Stated the only woman who had entered.

"Hm, well my friends call me Tristen… then again – everyone does."

Lastly, the final member of the team stayed silent for a moment, regarding Tristen carefully before speaking, "Paul Ryan's the name." He stated simply.

"Well you guys… this is it. Our Victim, Sara Rixen was murdered last night. The landlord came by this morning to collect rent and found her dead. He then called the cops, who called you guys." Tristen said coolly.

Paul glanced around and then turned his attention back to Tristen, "So why are you here then? You are with the CIA and we don't usually work together."

A small smile formed on Tristen's face, "Like I told Agent Locke here, I guess you guys just aren't cutting it."

"I don't think you know who you are talking about, we are at the top on this stuff." Paul retorted.

"Guess the top isn't good enough! But hell, don't get the idea that I want to be here – I could be sleeping in my bed right now. Instead I'm here so we are all gunna make the best of this… got it?" Tristen hissed, eyes locked on Paul.

Danny grinned, "Sleep does sound like a good alternative!" he said before Paul could reply.

Tristen winked, "Doesn't it? I usually work nights… I'm not much of a morning person." She crossed her arms and looked around at the group, "So, you kids are profilers aye? Well what happened?"

"Profiling takes time you know – its not something you can just come up with on the spot. First we have to process the scene." Melody replied.

Smiling, Tristen glanced around the room, "Well what can you tell me from what you see?"

"She was expecting her killer to be here…" Danny stated slowly.

"Now you're getting somewhere! This is how my people do things. Alright, so she was expecting this guy."

"Wait – what makes you think it was a guy?" Paul snapped.

Tristen smirked, "Several things… I think this was a man's work because, one, the contusions on our victim's wrist would only come from force an-"

"There are women out there who are strong you know!" Paul cut in, his voice angry.

"Yes, I know that… now if you don't mind. Reason two… look around. Candles, a fancy table setting, good dinner… she was having quite the fancy date last night. So," she stated before Paul could say anything, "unless our vic was seeing a body building woman for dinner I think I may be correct. But I'm not the profiler… so why don't you tell me?"

Rebecca nodded, "It does make sense, but we should keep an open mind as to what happened here. There is never an easy answer to crimes like these."

Tristen was silent for a moment. She glanced around the room and bit her lip, "I think I may have worked something up." She stated finally. "The victim was meeting someone for dinner – we know that. Now what we need to find out is who. He could have come from anywhere… a bar, a friend, some phone chat place… we need to search this house for any sign… any answer."

"Right, okay Rebecca and Mel, you two take the bedroom and the bathroom, Paul you look at the kitchen, Tristen why don't you look around the living room. I'll go and ask the neighbors if they knew anything about Sara and her love life." Danny stated and walked out the door.

Tristen smiled to herself and watched as the group went to their work. 'At least they aren't a bunch of morons.' She thought as she looked around the living room. It was small and relatively empty. There was a tan leather couch up against the north most wall with a little table by its side, a small fireplace on the west wall and a flat screen television opposite the couch sitting in a finely crafted armoire. To the left of the TV was a small desk on which sat a laptop. Tristen looked through the papers on the coffee table, but found nothing of interest so she turned her interests to the laptop.

It was a new model and had been left on, still plugged in. She looked at the screensaver that showed the time and picked the laptop up, moving it to the kitchen table. She went through the files, which had been saved in the documents folder, but found nothing outstanding. She moved the mouse pointer over the Internet explorer icon and double clicked. When the password screen came up she tried several common passwords, but none of them worked.

"Hey, Agent Ryan…" she said cautiously.

Paul looked up from the trash can he was going through and met Tristen's eyes, "What?"

"Do you know the victim's birth date?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied and looked through his notes, "April 17, 1974. Why do you need to know that?"

Tristen smirked and typed in the numbers 4791714 into the password field and hit the enter key, "There are several common passwords people tend to pick out for things they value. Birth dates are one of them. And why not? It is a relatively long set of numbers which are in no sequence. Only problem is that anyone who knows your birthday knows your password. So, what do people do to solve this? They try to be creative. Instead of putting in their birth date… they put it in backwards. Let's see if our victim was trying to be creative." Tristen laughed quietly, "Bingo."

Paul stood up and walked over to look at the laptop. "How did you know to do that?" he asked as he peered over Tristen's shoulder.

"Its simple. Human nature. You are the profiler not me… so why aren't you telling me this?" Tristen smiled as she opened up Sara's favorite folder. "This is my lucky day!" she mused.

"What are you talking about? Its just her favorites."

Tristen clicked on the top link and let the page load, "Yeah, its also a lead. This is one of those Internet dating sites. So, she could have met her killer here."

"Yeah, a 31 year old woman, still single. If she were looking for a relationship and was having trouble she would begin to worry. She would think she is getting too old for the bar style dating. This is the kind of place she would want to go… a place that promised fast results." Paul stated.

"Now your getting somewhere." Tristen replied, "Username… great – its auto saved… SexySara74… how creative." She rolled her eyes and entered the same number into the password field once again.

Paul looked at Tristen, "Say, how old are you?"

Tristen winked, "Its not polite to ask a lady her age… I'm 27 though."

"Twenty seven huh? And what about you? Are you scared of being alone Tristen?"

"Are you kidding me?" Tristen laughed, "I'm not scared of being alone at all… far from it! There is no way you would ever find me on one of these websites. Not that you would ever have the chance, I see that band you wear – so you're married. I'm sure that's all great. Not my thing though. I doubt I will ever settle down and be one of those house wives with the apron and the oven mitts." She looked at the screen that had now loaded Sara's home page. She clicked on the link that said mail and read the contents carefully, "Okay, she was talking to a good few guys on here… but these two: BruceBayfield and Soccer Fan… she talked to these guys the most." She was silent for a moment, reading, "There! Look at this message dated from two days ago!" She read the message quietly,

Bruce,

Hey its me Sara. I was thinking about what you said and yes we should get together. I would love to meet you. Why don't you come over to my place tomorrow night? You have my number, give me a call and I will give you directions over the phone.

Love,  
Sara Rixen

Tristen read the message over once more in her head and clicked on the link that went to Bruce's home page. He was a rather good-looking man in his mid thirties. He had short cut, light brown hair and very blue eyes. She read over his profile and noticed that he lived in Hollywood and was a lawyer. "This must be him… Bruce. This whole profile is probably fabricated."

As she was speaking, Danny walked back into the room, "So, Sara's neighbor said that she was meeting up with a guy on the night she died. Wonder if that means anything."

Paul glanced over at Danny and nodded, "I think it does… Sara met a guy on the night of her murder, and guy who called himself Bruce. She met him on a dating website."

"Sadly, there is nothing to go on here… chances are good that its all made up. Tristen stated slowly.

"So, how do you catch a killer who doesn't exist?" Melody asked as she walked out of the bedroom.

Rebecca smiled a little as she pulled off her gloves and came to stand with the group, "you play his game…"

All right, well thanks for reading this! . I would love if you would be so kind as to rate my fan fiction and check back sometime… perhaps I will add another part!


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